After four weeks and hundreds of entries from all over the world, the competition for the World’s Best Beer Trip has been whittled down to a final six. Now it’s up to you, the public, to decide which of the six finalists will be jetted off around the world to work, rest and play with the six host breweries.
For those of you who missed it first time around, 4 Pines, Feral, Meantime (London), The Brew (Shanghai), Good George (Hamilton) and Victory (Pennsylvania) combined forces to offer one lucky beer lover the chance to be flown around the world to spent three or four days with each. To enter, you had to submit a photo to Instagram and explain why you should win.
Each of the six brewers has picked their favourite photo from those tagged with their brewery name and now it’s over to you. Five of the final six have been chosen (we’re awaiting the Shanghai choice) and the shortlist includes serial winner Lachlan Toose, who won the Ultimate Good Beer Week competition earlier in the year with a short film and made another for his entry here (see below for more). The list so far is:
- Lachlan Toose – 4 Pines
- Cam Stevens – Feral Brewing
- Nikki Carmichael – Good George
- Paul Cutter – Meantime Brewing
- Jordan Flinchum – Victory
The truly epic competition was dreamt up by the team at 4 Pines, so we asked them how things had panned out so far.
How has the competition gone so far?
Great result: there were well over 800 entries from all over the globe, each brewery received hundreds of mentions via Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, with beer and mainstream media picking up the story and giving it a bit of a nudge.
How did you select your regional winners?
Creativity and entertainment value; the captions that went with the photos definitely helped. I also received a $100,000 bribe into my bank account transferred via Switzerland to keep Interpol from getting suspicious.
Any that have made you laugh?
Somebody wanted to win because they have a tattoo of a small black penis on their thigh. Apparently best decision they ever made – all thanks to beer. Someone also put a top hat and googly eyes on a schooner, puerile maybe but a damn funny photo.
Cry?
All the amazingly beautiful locations where people drink beer that we had to look at whilst sat in the office staring at a laptop.
Is an Aussie going to win?
It would be wrong of us to say that we can undeniably, positively 100 per cent guarantee without a shadow of a doubt that yes Australia will win. But it will. Well, that or one of the other four countries represented.
Do you need someone to go on the trip with the eventual winner?
Yes, we were looking for someone in the media space, maybe someone we could fund to travel with the winner and not have to report on the trip or even work at all – any thoughts?
Ummm… If only…
To vote, head here. Good luck to the final six! Do send Crafty a postcard. Or six.
4 Pines' choice, Lachlan, turns out to be not just a serial competition enterer but pretty good at shameless plugging too and has already been in touch with us. Here’s what he had to say of his entry and chances of the big prize.
How does it feel?
It feels awesome. I like the idea of a multi-stage competition. You have to appeal to the brewery who is choosing you, but also something that can appeal to everyone. The next 2 weeks are going to be exciting, trying to rally votes against the voting power of 1 billion Chinese people. With the USA shutdown, I’m assuming their internet is down and so the voting power of Victory Beer’s supporters will be nullified.
How much effort went into this?
Enough! I went through 4000 photos on my phone to find my entries and spent a morning making a video help me gather support. Luckily this competition didn’t need me to drag a camera all over Melbourne.
Do you enter very comp going?
Not as many as it seems. I prefer competitions that require a bit of effort because I always assume that most people won’t bother entering, no matter how great the prize.
Do you win every comp going?
I do win a few. The first competition I ever won was for a Purvis Beer voucher from when I wrote a poem review for VB for their website. I’ve also won a 4 Pines photo comp before and got a 6 pack from them.
Why should you win?
I think any one the finalists would deserve it. Clearly we all love craft beer. Of course I think I should win though. I should win though so I can represent Aussie craft beer geekery to the world. I want to get my hands dirty in the breweries during the day and party it up in the evening. I’m curious to see the well established scene of the US compared to the âstart upâ craft scene of China. I’ve also never been further west in Australia than Lorne, so getting to go to Feral would be a real treat.
